Tip prompts re-examination of unsolved Portland slaying

Front page story in The Muncie Star on March 1, 1950, a day after Portland teacher Garnet Ginn's body was found in her garage.(Photo: The Muncie Star)

PORTLAND, Ind. – Nearly seven decades after the mysterious death of a Portland teacher led to rumors of a cover-up and criticism of local authorities, a tip provided to current-day Portland police investigators has prompted a re-evaluation of the case.

A recent discussion of the unsolved slaying of 33-year-old Garnet Ginn – whose body was found 69 years ago next week, in a garage in the 300 block of North Harrison Street – on a local radio station prompted the tip, from an elderly ex-Portland resident who is "still scared" about his purported knowledge of the case, Police Chief Nathan Springer said Tuesday.

The man the tipster mentioned as a potential suspect in Ginn's death will never be arrested. He is dead, Springer said.

That aside, the police chief said his department would find out what it could about the man's possible involvement, perhaps providing an opportunity for "closure" to those with an interest in the case, including members of Ginn's family.

Rush to judgement?

At the time of her death, Garnet Ginn was in her seventh year as a home economics teacher at Portland High School. While she lived alone in an Arch Street home, she rented the garage, a short distance away, to house her 1949 Pontiac Coupe.

Ginn – a 1940 graduate of Ball State College – had earlier taught at Albany High School. Her parents, both educators, lived in the northern Henry County community of Mount Summit.

The teacher was last seen alive on the evening of Feb. 27, 1950, when she attended a sorority meeting at the Jay County Country Club.

After she failed to show up for work the next morning, the local school superintendent and Ginn's landlord found her body in the Harrison Street garage. A sewing-machine belt, tied around one of the handles on Ginn's car, was looped around her neck.

Portland police – and Jay County Coroner Donald Spahr, who arrived at the scene after a local undertaker had already removed Ginn's body from the garage – apparently quickly concluded the teacher had taken her own life.

Spahr ruled the cause of death strangulation, but left his verdict "open," not formally declaring it to be a homicide or suicide.

On Feb. 3, 1950 – four days after her body was discovered, with no autopsy having been conducted – Ginn was laid to rest in a cemetery in her native Fulton County, about 90 miles northwest of Portland.

Exhumation and an autopsy

Over the next several weeks, Ginn's family raised concerns about the assumption among authorities in Portland that she had committed suicide.

The teacher had shown no signs of depression and seemed an unlikely candidate to have harmed herself, they said. They also noted Ginn's billfold, believed to contain about $40 and her driver's license, was nowhere to be found.

The Indianapolis Star and a weekly newspaper in Portland, the Graphic, took up the cause, calling for further investigation of the death.

On April 12, Ginn's remains were exhumed from her northern Indiana grave, with the approval of her parents, and driven to an Indianapolis hospital, where an autopsy was conducted.

Medical examiners there also concluded the teacher had been strangled – although perhaps manually, not with the sewing-machine belt – and determined Ginn had repeatedly been struck in the head with "a club or some similar weapon," leaving at least seven wounds, The Indianapolis Star reported.

The medical examination prompted headlines across the state indicating, without qualification, the teacher had been murdered.

The autopsy findings also fueled media criticism of the local criminal investigation and Spahr. The careless handling of the death scene came under particular fire.

The front page of The Muncie Star on April 14, 1950, after autopsy findings prompted many to declare Portland teacher Garnet Ginn's Feb. 27 death had been the result of a homicide.(Photo: The Muncie Star)

"The Portland police, after industriously trampling out footprints in the vicinity of the car, wrote off the incident as a suicide," The Muncie Star wrote. "They overlooked blood along the sides of the car, on both rear fenders, the roof and the cushion of the front seat."

Critics also noted tears in Ginn's clothing that could have been caused by a struggle.

In a later report, Coroner Spahr now acknowledged the head injuries. While he left the manner of death undetermined, the coroner seemed to imply suicide was still a possibility.

Possible suspects

Newspaper reports in the wake of the 1950 slaying mentioned, without identifying by name, at least two potential suspects in the death.

One was a Purdue University professor who had previously dated Ginn, and was later cleared of involvement.

The other was a Portland resident, repeatedly described, cryptically, in news coverage as being "influential."

The local man had reportedly dated the teacher before marrying another woman.

He had, articles reflected, repeatedly "tried to force his attention" on a resistant Ginn even after his wedding. A friend said the teacher had told her, not long before her death, the man had surprised her in the Harrison Street garage, at one point entering the teacher's car and refusing to get out.

The nature of the man's local "influence" in Portland at the time was never specified, although The Indianapolis Star at one point noted he was not involved in the local school system or active in politics.

There were suggestions – never substantiated – that the man's standing in the community made local authorities reluctant to investigate.

Springer said Tuesday it was possible the man named by the recent tipster could have been viewed as being prominent in the community.

He said he would likely not release that deceased man's name unless firm evidence linking him to Ginn's death could be found.

"Lots of names have been dragged through the mud over the years,' he said.

Springer's department would submit any evidence in the death investigation for 21st century forensic testing. But to this point, nothing stemming from the department's 1950 probe – not even police reports, let alone actual physical evidence – has been tracked down.

"We have nothing," the chief said.

Efforts are under way to contact relatives of the deceased potential suspect, he said.

And Indiana State Police – also involved in the 1950 investigation – will be asked if they might have retained, all these decades later, any evidence or paperwork tied to the death of Garnet Ginn.

Douglas Walker is a news reporter at The Star Press. Contact him at 765-213-5851 or at dwalker@muncie.gannett.com.